Hand Of God

I'm not a religious person. My parents weren't particularly religious, so the Bible, God and Church were simply not a subject at our dinner table, or anywhere else in the house. But one of the conversations I remember best from my childhood was about God, and I had that discussion with my next-door neighbor and best friend at the time. I regret that discussion to this day...

_{source: YouTube}

That's because at the end, my best friend ran home crying, afterwards his father came home to have a talk with my father, and since that day we were best friends no more. Looking back at that episode I now realize that it was my first confrontation with going against deeply held beliefs, and what it can do with people if someone shatters the foundation under those beliefs. My next-door best friend lost it after I repeated the lessons from my father: don't believe anything you can't see, touch, hear or smell, don't believe in ghosts, gods, spirits or phantoms because they're not real but figments of our imagination, conjured up to make us feel safe or scared. Yep, my father was quick to teach me those things and I can't remember a time in my life when I believed in Santa Claus. A famous Dutch psychologist once said that he only difference between believing in God and believing in Santa Claus, is that in the case of the latter your parents were wise enough to let you know he's not real. Look, we were kids and I didn't just didn't know...

_{Maradona’s 'Hand of God' Was More Than Just A Goal…}

This little look-back at my childhood came up because recently two things happened that are of great personal interest to me and have a lot to do with religion. First, there's the sad departure from this life of Argentinian football-deity Diego Maradonna. I have nothing with football (or soccer), but my father was a great fan of the sports and particularly of the Brazilian, Argentinian and other south American teams, as that's where both he and I were born. I remember watching the 1986 world championship with my father and if you're old enough, you'll also remember Diego Maradonna's world famous goal against England. That goal is so famous, it got its own title: "The Hand Of God". Maradonna is famous for dribbling with the ball glued to his foot, he was nimble and fast, capable of traversing huge distances on the field while passing desperate defensive players. One thing he was not famous for were headers; he was a short man of only 1.65 meter. But in 1986 against England he scored a header. Or that's what it looked like, and the score was counted. But in the slow-motion replay it became clear that he couldn't reach the ball with his head, and instead he hit it with his hand; hence the hand of God. Watch the above linked video about that goal to learn what made it so special, and why it was Maradonna's revenge on England; it has something to do with the Falklands War, at the time the latest of a series of attacks by imperialistic England against Argentina. If you just want a quick look at the goal itself, watch below.

_{Maradona 'Hand of God' Goal 1986 World Cup}

The second religulous event is even funnier, but also quite disturbing. It's the thing that made me remember that discussion I had as a kid with my religious neighbor. Recent polls show that two-thirds of people who voted for Trump still believe the election was stolen from them. It's troubling enough that so many people believe this without a shred of proof, when even Trump's lawyers admit before judges that there's no wide-spread fraud. It's incredible that people believe Trump, a pathological liar, a cheat and a conman, on his word. But withing that group there's a sub-section that deserves special mention; the evangelicals. Believing in God, in any God, requires the capability of believing something without a reason to believe in it. That's the definition of faith: belief without proof, or even the need for proof. In the case of religious belief I can now understand it for most people, because they were given that belief by their parents, by their upbringing, during the time in which their brains were developing and their connectomes were shaped. It's not impossible to unlearn things at an older age, but it's much more difficult to change the map of neural connections when you're old; ever wonder why elderly people are often labeled "stubborn"? Now you know. But the American evangelicals have gone one step further; they've transitioned their undying belief in an authoritarian Heavenly Father to their Great Orange Leader, with some funny but disturbing results... Just like the QAnon crowd they see Donald Trump as their savior, as The One who will save them from the "libtards" and communists when there's not a communist in sight. These are the people who believe in the "Invisible Hand above the Market" and see in Donald Trump's actions the visible "Hand of God"... Just watch this 10 minute compilation, and you'll understand why that discussion with my religious neighbor immediately sprang to mind.

_{Evangelicals Freak Out}

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